Chapter 2 - THE CALL
For a few seconds, I thought I had misheard him.
“My mother is doing what?”
My editor, Marcus Bell, exhaled into the phone.
“She called the main newsroom line twice.”
I stood in the middle of my apartment with one shoe on and one shoe in my hand.
“What did she say?”
“She asked who handles complaints about employee conduct.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course she did.
Marcus continued.
“She said one of our reporters had used a private family dinner to create a professional connection with a federal judge.”
My shoe dropped to the floor.
“She said that?”
“Almost word for word.”
I pressed two fingers to my forehead.
“Marcus, I did not create a connection with him.”
“I know.”
“He already knew me because of the series.”
“I know that too.”
“She invited me to the dinner.”
“I assumed so.”
I opened my eyes.
Marcus had been my editor for six years.
He had seen me spend seventy-hour weeks on stories nobody else wanted to touch.
He had seen me sit in parking lots outside courthouses eating crackers for dinner.
He had once driven three hours in a snowstorm because a source was scared to meet alone.
He also had exactly zero patience for family drama entering the newsroom.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t apologize for someone else dialing our number.”
His voice softened slightly.
“But I need you to tell me if there is anything about last night that could become an ethics problem.”
“No.”
“Did you discuss any pending case?”
“No.”
“Did Harrison give you information?”
“No.”
“Did you ask him for anything?”
“No.”
“Did he ask you for anything?”
“No.”
“Good.”
I sank onto the edge of my couch.
“What happens now?”
“Nothing, unless she keeps calling.”
I laughed once without humor.
“You don’t know my mother.”
“I’m beginning to.”
My phone buzzed against my thigh.
A text from Ryan.
YOU NEED TO FIX THIS.
Then another.
MEGAN IS QUESTIONING EVERYTHING.
Then another.
DAD WON’T ANSWER ME.
I stared at the screen.
Marcus heard the silence.
“What?”
“Ryan.”
“Your brother?”
“He says I need to fix the dinner.”
Marcus was quiet for a beat.
“Can I give you advice that has nothing to do with journalism?”
“Please.”
“Don’t.”
That made me laugh for real.
It was brief, but it loosened something in my chest.
“I have a meeting at ten,” he said.
“Come in after.”
“I’m working from home today.”
“No, you’re not.”
I frowned.
“Why?”
“Because your mother has called the newsroom, and I don’t want you sitting alone imagining ten disasters that haven’t happened.”
I looked at the dusty graduation photograph on my coffee table.
I had taken it out of my purse the night before.
The glass was scratched.
The frame had a chip in one corner.
My twenty-two-year-old face stared back at me with the kind of exhausted happiness I had almost forgotten.
“All right,” I said.
“I’ll come in.”
Before I could hang up, Marcus added one more thing.
“Emily.”
“Yeah?”
“If she calls again, legal handles it.”
“I understand.”
“No.”
His voice sharpened.
“I mean you do not handle it for them.”
The distinction landed harder than I expected.
For most of my life, I had handled things for my family.
I handled Mom’s moods.
Dad’s silence.
Ryan’s confusion whenever the consequences of Mom’s choices reached him.
I handled birthdays where my presents were forgotten.
I handled holidays where my work was mocked as “writing sad stories.”
I handled lies because correcting them made everyone uncomfortable.
I had become an expert at absorbing impact.
“I won’t,” I said.
Marcus did not sound convinced.
“Good.”
We hung up.
Ryan called thirty seconds later.
I let it ring.
He called again.
Then a third time.
On the fourth, I answered.
“What?”
He did not bother with hello.
“What the hell happened after you left?”
I looked around my quiet apartment.
“You were there.”
“No, I mean with Megan.”
“I don’t know.”
“She went home with her parents.”
“That seems reasonable.”
“Emily.”
His voice dropped.
“She took her engagement ring off.”
I went still.
For a moment, the anger disappeared.
“Did she end it?”
“No.”
His voice cracked slightly.
“But she said she needs space.”
I leaned back against the couch.
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you?”
That erased my sympathy faster than I wanted to admit.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you sat there and let her dad humiliate us.”
I closed my eyes.
There it was.
I had sat there.
I had answered questions.
And somehow I had done something to him.
“Ryan, what exactly do you think I should have done?”
“You could have stopped him.”
“How?”
“You could have said it wasn’t a big deal.”
“My job?”
“The whole thing.”
I stood and walked toward the window.
Traffic moved below me in thin gray lines.
“Your fiancée is not upset because I have a job.”
“You don’t know what she’s upset about.”
“Then tell me.”
He was silent.
I waited.
Finally he said, “She thinks our family lies about things.”
The sentence was almost funny.
“She thinks?”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Sound like a reporter.”
I stared out the window.
“What would you prefer I sound like?”
“My sister.”
I almost answered too quickly.
Then I stopped.
Because beneath the accusation, there was something else.
Fear.
Ryan had spent his entire life being presented with a polished version of himself.
Maybe he had started believing it too.
“Ryan,” I said carefully, “what did Mom tell Megan’s family about you?”
His answer came too fast.
“Nothing weird.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“She may have exaggerated some things.”
“How much?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to Megan.”
He swore under his breath.
“This is exactly what she said.”
“What did Mom tell them?”
He did not answer.
I waited.
Finally, he said, “She told them I was being considered for part ownership of the dealership.”
I rubbed my forehead.
“Are you?”
“No.”
“What else?”
“Emily.”
“What else?”
He exhaled.
“She said I supervise thirty-two people.”
“How many do you supervise?”
“Four.”
I closed my eyes.
“Anything else?”
“She said I bought my house.”
I knew Ryan rented a townhouse.
“Why would she say that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
He went quiet.
“She wants them to think I’m successful.”
“You are successful.”
He gave a bitter laugh.
“Apparently not enough.”
That was the first honest thing he had said.
I let the silence sit between us.
Then Ryan asked a question I never expected.
“Did she do this to you too?”
I looked at the graduation photo.
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“With you, she added things.”
I swallowed.
“With me, she removed them.”
He did not answer.
For a moment, I wondered if he finally saw it.
Then his voice hardened again.
“Well, whatever this is, you need to talk to Megan.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because your relationship with Megan is not mine to repair.”
“You started this.”
“No.”
I said it slowly.
“Mom started it when she lied.”
He hung up on me.
I stared at the phone.
Five seconds later, a message appeared from Dad.
Can we talk privately?
I almost ignored it.
Then another message arrived.
Not at the house.
That changed everything.
Dad had never asked to meet me somewhere Mom could not hear.
I typed back.
Where?
His reply came immediately.
The old diner off Route 30.
Tomorrow. 8 a.m.
Then, before I could answer, he sent one more line.
There are things I should have told you years ago.
After Ryan hung up, I stayed by the window longer than I wanted to admit.
The city below me kept moving with insulting normalcy.
A bus stopped.
A delivery cyclist swore at a taxi.
Someone across the street opened a bakery and carried a chalkboard onto the sidewalk.
My family could be detonating three hours away, and Chicago still needed bagels.
That steadiness helped.
I picked up the graduation photograph and turned it over.
Nothing was written on the back.
That surprised me after what Dad had said at dinner.
For years I had assumed Mom simply failed to notice things about me.
A missed article here.
A forgotten award there.
Maybe forgetting was easier to forgive than choosing.
The phone buzzed again.
This time it was Megan.
I let the message sit for a full minute before opening it.
I’m sorry last night became what it became.
Then a second message.
For what it’s worth, I wish I had asked you about your work myself.
I typed three different replies and erased all of them.
Finally I wrote:
You can ask me anything directly.
The sentence looked almost embarrassingly simple.
But direct questions were becoming revolutionary in my family.
Megan replied with a heart, then nothing else.
I put the phone down and realized I was waiting for the next emergency.
That was another habit I had learned at home.
Silence was never rest.
Silence was the hallway before someone called your name.
I forced myself to make breakfast.
I burned the first piece of toast because Ryan called again.
I ignored him.
The second piece burned because Mom called.
I ignored her too.
By the third piece, I understood I was standing in my own kitchen allowing ringing phones to control my morning.
I switched the phone to silent.
The toast came out perfect.
It was a ridiculously small victory.
I ate it anyway.
On the train into the newsroom that morning, I caught my reflection in the dark glass and thought about the phrase my sister.
Ryan had used it like a job description.
Sound like my sister.
For years, I had assumed being a good sister meant making myself easier to defend.
Less political at dinner.
Less intense about work.
Less likely to correct Mom in public.
But none of that had made Ryan know me better.
It had only made me quieter.
By the time the train reached the Loop, I understood something uncomfortable.
May you like
If Ryan wanted a sister now, he would have to meet the person who actually existed, not the version who kept family peace by disappearing.
